There is a continuous and expanding need for rapid, highly specific methods of detecting and quantifying chemical, biochemical and biological substances as analytes in research and diagnostic mixtures. Of particular value are methods for measuring small quantities of nucleic acids, peptides, pharmaceuticals, metabolites, microorganisms and other materials of diagnostic value. Examples of such materials include narcotics and poisons, drugs administered for therapeutic purposes, hormones, pathogenic microorganisms and viruses, antibodies, and enzymes and nucleic acids, particularly those implicated in disease states.
The presence of a particular analyte can often be determined by binding methods that exploit the high degree of specificity, which characterizes many biochemical and biological systems. Frequently used methods are based on, for example, antigen-antibody systems, nucleic acid hybridization techniques, and protein-ligand systems. In these methods, the existence of a complex of diagnostic value is typically indicated by the presence or absence of an observable “label” which has been attached to one or more of the interacting materials. The specific labeling method chosen often dictates the usefulness and versatility of a particular system for detecting an analyte of interest. Preferred labels are inexpensive, safe, and capable of being attached efficiently to a wide variety of chemical, biochemical, and biological materials without significantly altering the important binding characteristics of those materials. The label should give a highly characteristic signal, and should be rarely, and preferably never, found in nature. The label should be stable and detectable in aqueous systems over periods of time ranging up to months. Detection of the label is preferably rapid, sensitive, and reproducible without the need for expensive, specialized facilities or the need for special precautions to protect personnel. Quantification of the label is preferably relatively independent of variables such as temperature and the composition of the mixture to be assayed.
A wide variety of labels have been developed, each with particular advantages and disadvantages. For example, radioactive labels are quite versatile, and can be detected at very low concentrations, such labels are, however, expensive, hazardous, and their use requires sophisticated equipment and trained personnel. Thus, there is wide interest in non-radioactive labels, particularly in labels that are observable by spectrophotometric, spin resonance, and luminescence techniques, and reactive materials, such as enzymes that produce such molecules.
Labels that are detectable using fluorescence spectroscopy are of particular interest, because of the large number of such labels that are known in the art. Moreover, the literature is replete with syntheses of fluorescent labels that are derivatized to allow their facile attachment to other molecules, and many such fluorescent labels are commercially available.
In addition to being directly detected, many fluorescent labels operate to quench the fluorescence of an adjacent second fluorescent label. Because of its dependence on the distance and the magnitude of the interaction between the quencher and the fluorophore, the quenching of a fluorescent species provides a sensitive probe of molecular conformation and binding, or other, interactions. An excellent example of the use of fluorescent reporter quencher pairs is found in the detection and analysis of nucleic acids.
Fluorescent nucleic acid probes are important tools for genetic analysis, in both genomic research and development, and in clinical medicine. As information from the Human Genome Project accumulates, the level of genetic interrogation mediated by fluorescent probes will expand enormously. One particularly useful class of fluorescent probes includes self-quenching probes, also known as fluorescence energy transfer probes, or FET probes. The design of different probes using this motif may vary in detail. In an exemplary FET probe, both a fluorophore and a quencher are tethered to nucleic acid. The probe is configured such that the fluorophore is proximate to the quencher and the probe produces a signal only as a result of its hybridization to an intended target. Despite the limited availability of FET probes, techniques incorporating their use are rapidly displacing alternative methods.
Probes containing a fluorophore-quencher pair have been developed for nucleic acid hybridization assays where the probe forms a hairpin structure, i.e., where the probe hybridizes to itself to form a loop such that the quencher molecule is brought into proximity with the reporter molecule in the absence of a complementary nucleic acid sequence to prevent the formation of the hairpin structure (see, for example, WO 90/03446; European Patent Application No. 0 601 889 A2). When a complementary target sequence is present, hybridization of the probe to the complementary target sequence disrupts the hairpin structure and causes the probe to adopt a conformation where the quencher molecule is no longer close enough to the reporter molecule to quench the reporter molecule. As a result, the probes provide an increased fluorescence signal when hybridized to a target sequence than when they are unhybridized
Assays have also been developed for detecting a selected nucleic acid sequence and for identifying the presence of a hairpin structure using two separate probes, one containing a reporter molecule and the other a quencher molecule (see, Meringue, et al., Nucleic Acids Research, 22: 920–928 (1994)). In these assays, the fluorescence signal of the reporter molecule decreases when hybridized to the target sequence due to the quencher molecule being brought into proximity with the reporter molecule.
One particularly important application for probes including a reporter-quencher molecule pair is their use in nucleic acid amplification reactions, such as polymerase chain reactions (PCR), to detect the presence and amplification of a target nucleic acid sequence. In general, nucleic acid amplification techniques have opened broad new approaches to genetic testing and DNA analysis (see, for example, Arnheim et al. Ann. Rev. Biochem., 61: 131–156 (1992)). PCR, in particular, has become a research tool of major importance with applications in, for example, cloning, analysis of genetic expression, DNA sequencing, genetic mapping and drug discovery (see, Arnheim et al., supra; Gilliland et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 87: 2725–2729 (1990); Bevan et al., PCR Methods and Applications, 1: 222–228 (1992); Green et al., PCR Methods and Applications, 1: 77–90 (1991); Blackwell et al., Science, 250: 1104–1110 (1990)).
Commonly used methods for detecting nucleic acid amplification products require that the amplified product be separated from unreacted primers. This is typically achieved either through the use of gel electrophoresis, which separates the amplification product from the primers on the basis of a size differential, or through the immobilization of the product, allowing free primer to be washed away. However, a number of methods for monitoring the amplification process without prior separation of primer have been described. All of them are based on FET, and none of them detect the amplified product directly. Instead, the methods detect some event related to amplification. For that reason, they are accompanied by problems of high background, and are not quantitative, as discussed below.
One method, described in Wang et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,853; and Anal. Chem., 67: 1197–1203 (1995)), uses an energy transfer system in which energy transfer occurs between two fluorophores on the probe. In this method, detection of the amplified molecule takes place in the amplification reaction vessel, without the need for a separation step. This method, however, does not detect the amplified product, but instead detects the dissociation of primer from the “energy-sink” nucleic acid. Thus, this method is dependent on detection of a decrease in emissions; a significant portion of labeled primer must be utilized in order to achieve a reliable difference between the signals before and after the reaction.
A second method detecting an amplification product without prior separation of primer and product is the 5′-nuclease PCR assay (also referred to as the TaqMan™ assay) (Holland et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 88: 7276–7280 (1991); Lee et al., Nucleic Acids Res., 21: 3761–3766 (1993)). This assay detects the accumulation of a specific PCR product by hybridization and cleavage of a doubly labeled fluorogenic probe (the “TaqMan” probe) during the amplification reaction. The fluorogenic probe consists of an nucleic acid labeled with both a fluorescent reporter dye and a quencher dye. During PCR, this probe is cleaved by the 5′-exonuclease activity of DNA polymerase if, and only if, it hybridizes to the segment being amplified. Cleavage of the probe generates an increase in the fluorescence intensity of the reporter dye.
In the TaqMan assay, the donor and quencher are preferably located on the 3′- and 5′-ends of the probe, because the requirement that 5′-3′ hydrolysis be performed between the fluorophore and quencher may be met only when these two moieties are not too close to each other (Lyamichev et al., Science, 260:778–783 (1993)). This requirement is a serious drawback of the assay as the efficiency of energy transfer decreases with the inverse sixth power of the distance between the reporter and quencher. Thus, if the quencher is not close enough to the reporter to achieve the most efficient quenching the background emissions from the probe can be quite high.
Yet another method of detecting amplification products that relies on the use of energy transfer is the “beacon probe” method described by Tyagi et al. (Nature Biotech., 14:303–309 (1996)) which is also the subject of U.S. Pat. No. 5,312,728 to Lizardi et al. This method employs nucleic acid hybridization probes that can form hairpin structures. On one end of the hybridization probe (either the 5′- or 3′-end) there is a donor fluorophore, and on the other end, an acceptor moiety. In this method, the acceptor moiety is a quencher, absorbing energy from the donor. Thus when the beacon is in the open conformation, the fluorescence of the donor fluorophore is detectable, whereas when the beacon is in hairpin (closed) conformation, the fluorescence of the donor fluorophore is quenched. When employed in PCR, the molecular beacon probe, which hybridizes to one of the strands of the PCR product, is in “open conformation,” and fluorescence is detected, while those that remain unhybridized will not fluoresce. As a result, the amount of fluorescence will increase as the amount of PCR product increases, and thus can be used as a measure of the progress of the PCR.
Certain limitations impede the application and use of FET probes, or result in assays that are less sensitive than they could be. Foremost among these limitations is the presence of background fluorescence attributable to the emission of the quencher, giving the probe a higher fluorescent noise background than is desirable. An approach that has been utilized to ameliorate this limitation is the use of a quencher that is not a fluorophore (“dark quenchers”), such as derivatives of 4-(dimethylamino)azobenzene (DABCYL). DABCYL is useful as a quenching agent for a limited group of fluorophores with whose emission characteristics, the absorption characteristics of DABCYL overlap. The limited absorption range of DABCYL restricts the utility of this compound by allowing the use of a limited number of fluorophores in conjunction with DABCYL. Because relatively few fluorophores can be used with DABCYL in FET pairs, multiplex applications, where it is desired to use two or more fluorophores with clearly resolved fluorescence emission spectra are difficult to design using this quencher.
In view of the limitations of presently available dark quenchers and probes, such as FET probes constructed with these quenchers, there exists in the art a need for improved quenchers that can be incorporated into probes for detecting analytes rapidly, sensitively, reliably and quantitatively. Ideal quenchers would be have little to no fluorescent quenching signal, and be easily and inexpensively prepared. Moreover, a series of quenchers having similar physical properties, but distinct spectral properties would be particularly advantageous. Quite surprisingly, the present invention provides such quenchers, probes incorporating these quenchers and methods for using the quenchers and probes.